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Welcome to the 3rd Thomas White Curry Lecture for Austin Seminaries, Midwinter's. It is good to remember that the curry lectures were first held in 1952 and we're sponsored for so many years by the Tom Curry Bible

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class of Highland Park Presbyterian Church Dallas. And we are grateful to the curry family that they established and endowed fund enabling the continuity of these lectures. This morning, we again welcome the reverend dr Elizabeth Henson

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Hasty as our curry lecturer, Dr Henson. Hasty serves as associate professor of Theology at Bellarmine University in Louisville Kentucky. A glance at her resume tells you that her PhD is from Union Presbyterian Seminary. It

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also tells you that her academic work serves the church through an abundance of lectures and presentations and publications. That she is a sought after participant in ecumenical international consultations and somehow, in the midst of all these

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things that she makes time for her students, she is the recipient for the Wilson Wyatt Faculty Fellowship Award for Excellence in teaching and Scholarship. She is the recipient of the President's Faculty Merit Award. She is

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the recipient of the provost's Faculty Merit Award and she was selected by the students of that university as faculty superhero in her curry lectures. She's invited us to think about our family histories in relation to poverty.

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Our place is on the ladders of success, accumulation and wealth. She's invited us to look at what is in our hands around the monopoly game board table . She's invited us to turn the tables on the

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discussion of the problem of poverty and turning to the table to engage the problem of practices of wealth that idolize and do not see the interdependency of all things in God's creation. She invites us to a theology

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of Enough. It is a delight to introduce you to dr Elizabeth Henson Hasty. And we look forward to hearing your third lecture. Theological courage for an economy of sharing. Mhm Yeah, thank you,

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jen Dr Lord has been one of the most fantastic hosts, taking us places and caring for me while I've been here and I'm deeply, deeply grateful for your hospitality and your care. I think it's worth

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referencing again. Part of the him that Margaret referenced in her last lecture. God will delight when we are creators of justice and joy, compassion and peace as we near the end of our time together.

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This week. I want to turn our attention in this third lecture in the series to approach the topic of grace filled economy from a more practical perspective, as religious leaders, as pastors, professors, lay

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leaders, and some of us maybe even social activists . I want to turn our attention this morning in this third lecture to some more practical questions, where do we see alternative economic models emerging within our society

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that are at least envisioned in part because of faith commitments? Where do we see evidence of people who have the theological and moral courage to confront market idolatry , market triumphalism and human greed? How can we

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, as religious leaders, pastors, professors, and others seeking to live out our faith with authenticity and integrity? Actually do to respond to economic injustice and inequalities in social and political power and the distribution of

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wealth in recent years, I have found that social , economic and spiritual resistance to market triumphalism is growing in the US. Religious efforts, particularly among christian groups, to envision alternatives to neoliberalism, are found

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in both movements to reform the current economic system, and many grassroots efforts to create a space for real and viable alternatives within the system to emerge? My intention in this lecture is to provide you with a

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spectrum of responses, including more traditional movements for reform , resistance to an advocacy for specific public policies, and a brief description of grassroots efforts towards Eca Hole is um, and intentional communities. It's important for

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me to make the observation here that context is going to be key. So many of the examples that I use in this lecture will come from my own urban, white, middle class context in the city

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. In a city in the southeastern United States, of course, there will be many others who can offer relevant responses that emerge from their own context. And I hope that you will talk to each other

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while you're here. This lecture is intended to generate discussion, increase our collective imagination and to inspire creativity among us as we go out and return to our homes and our churches. Some significant movements to reform

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our current context are expressed in more traditional ways and rely upon ecumenical and interfaith networks and organizations that were created in the past, denominational ecumenical and interfaith organizations and networks, wage letter campaigns, encourage and facilitate

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advocacy, draft confessional statements and provide valuable educational programming to help us understand the issues that we are facing . Several examples will highlight interfaith ecumenical and denominational level work To speak out for a faithful budget campaign was

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launched by the National Council of Churches Poverty Initiative in the summer of 2011. Faithful America, an interfaith organization, supports the real values agenda, which professes the belief that the moral measure of America is judged

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by how those who have the least are treated not by Wall Street profits. A number of clear and cogent statements have been made that have come out of both the World Council of Churches and also the World

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Communion of Reform Churches. The World Council of Churches have got a process, has invited charges to consider alternative models of globalization that will be sensitive to the needs of people and the earth. The global forum

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on poverty, wealth and ecology that I mentioned yesterday in relation to my trip to Jakarta, issued a powerful statement that wasn't just a statement, it's a call to action what's most important about this statement and

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I commend it to you because actually, of the 100 representatives at the meeting in Jakarta, there was a consensus that was formed around this document, 100 people from all regions of the world, the world

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Communion of Reform Churches across confession is another excellent example that cause us to repent from our complicity with our current system of late stage global capitalism. At our last General Assembly, Margaret, a mors bible study

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and the across confession within it were commended to our whole church for prayer and study. I hope we will take the church up on that encouragement. Many mainline denominations continue to maintain offices, even if they

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are shrinking. That keeps social witness on denominational agendas and have made statements emphasizing solidarity with people living in poverty in the U. S. And around the world. Uh, the Advocacy Committee on Social Witness

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Policy, at least a resolution team formed by that committee drafted and adopted a social creed for the 21st century. Our denomination has made statements concerning just globalization , pay equity and environment and energy. Many of

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the statements have also been endorsed by ecumenical organizations such as the National Council of Churches. In addition, a broad range of interfaith and ecumenical organizations are bringing issues of wealth, inequalities and poverty to the forefront

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of our public discussion. These types of organizations will likely be familiar to you sojourners, faith in public life, Interfaith Power and Light and the National Religious Partnership for the Environment. Local congregations also create service

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opportunities both at home and abroad, which are coupled with educational forums that act as a kind of seminary of the people. Educational forms are designed to introduce members to christian views on wealth and property and to

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encourage civic engagement on issues of poverty and justice. Many congregations work with organizations to promote retreats or combine educational programs with emergent with immersion experiences. Examples include Hearts and Motion. It's an organization that have assisted

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students at Bellarmine and building a dental clinic in Guatemala , Crossroads ministries, which is sponsored by ST Williams catholic church, and border links based in Tucson Arizona , more traditional approaches to reform are an essential part

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of the effort to create change, but it's worth making a couple of additional observations here. This type of approach works best within established institutional frameworks. It often can take a charity based, more philanthropic approach

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. We need to be acutely aware here that financial support for denominational, ecumenical and interfaith organizations and networks is diminishing In our own denomination. Over the last 10 years, there has been a steep decline in

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funding, which means that the institutional social justice vine is withering. Do we want to let it die ? Our work has not only been key for the development of a presbyterian understanding of the mission of the

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church in the world, but the work of the PC USA in our offices for social witness and advocacy has been critical to much larger ecumenical and interfaith organizations , especially the National Council of Churches at the World

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Council of Churches and the World Communion of Reform Churches , Grassroots advocacy and movements for resistance to specific public policies. Eca Hole is um and intentional communities represent some of the most creative and innovative efforts that are

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being made across the US and within church communities here . I want to focus on some examples of groups who resist or advocate for changes in specific public policies . Their work is not only transforming what they see

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as faulty or misguided public policies. Their ministries reshapes the church's understanding of itself and expresses their understanding of the church's mission as one of transformation in Louisville. There's an organization called Clout, which formed as a

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direct action multi issue organization dedicated to improving the quality of life in our communities. Cloud is an acronym for Citizens of Louisville United. Together robert Owen, who is founder and executive director of Cloud, is

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also a presbyterian minister. He has led what is called the Nehemiah Action Assembly, which addressed issues such as bullying in public schools, plugging the school to prison pipeline, initiating fair finance for all families,

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creating a Kentucky coalition for responsible lending and assisting Children to access Medicaid and other child health care insurance programs in Kentucky. At the january meeting of the Society of Christian Ethics, I also heard a presentation that

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was done by reverend john Fife, former moderator of the Peace U. S. A. And a teaching elder. He gave a presentation about his work with Humane Borders. I feel sure that most of

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you will know of some of his work with the sanctuary movement and now with a new sanctuary movement. He's co founder of three organizations Humane Borders Samaritans and no more deaths that provide relief, water, food

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directions for people crossing the U. S. Mexican border without government documentation, five himself has risked a prison term on many occasions to save lives and considers his work a direct result of the tragic failure of

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border border patrol procedures and strategies. Another example is trinity United Church of christ in Chicago Illinois or in Illinois trinity UCC. Under the leadership of reverend dr Otis Moss trains leaders and their congregation for what they

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call Participative Politics, they adopt a black value system which consists among other values of commitments to God, the black family and community adherence to a black work ethic and the disavowal of middle class Nous. Other

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countries across the country have adopted specific advocacy programs aimed at advocating for laborers or creating low income housing in the piece of usa support for campaign for fairer food has been significant and through consumer boycotts enough pressure has

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been applied to raise wages for farm laborers. Another example from the 19 eighties Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church in Baltimore Maryland, cooperated with other church related groups, religious people working in soup kitchens and homeless shelters and

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workers and union organizers to form a coalition that backed a living wage campaign. The Housing Ministry of the Episcopal Church of the Messiah in Detroit. Michigan offers still another illustration. Detroit has been one of the

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city's that's hardest hit by changes in the auto industry . In response to the needs of the urban community , the charge of the Messiah has been involved in developing over 200 affordable housing units since 1978. I

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could go on and on, I hope, and imagine that many of your church is maybe part of similar efforts within your context. But let me turn to another type of grassroots approach. Another type of

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grassroots approach provides alternatives by developing a land economy and has become tremendously attractive for many local congregations. These efforts link local responses to a much larger global issue catholic moral theologian Marc Almond describes the problem in in

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this way in his book The Almighty and the dollar . In a globalized industrial economy, food production and consumption practices have become dependent upon the capacity of large agricultural and food corporations to manufacture and ship goods around

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the world at the cheapest price, burning up scarce energy supplies and further threatening earth's ecological integrity. At the same time, disparities and power have rendered healthy food relatively inaccessible to certain populations, resulting in disproportionate

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health risk for poor people of color in urban US communities. Eca Hole is um is the term often used by ethicists to describe the way in which communities and congregations are responding to these problems. Eco socialism

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can be argued along different lines, but it begins with an understanding of belonging to a community, in the sense of a larger and more expansive community of organisms. A lecture entitled It All Turns on affection

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that was written by Kentucky author and advocate Wendell Berry offers a vivid description of why we should focus our attention on an eca holistic approach and return to a land economy. In that lecture, Barry tells the

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story of his grandfather who earned his living working on a farm in a little town named Port Royal Kentucky . Allow me to set the historical context. You'll likely be aware that even during the years of the

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Great Depression, the small farmer had to contend with the long reach of industrialism. By the 1920s, farmers and their families were confronted with a growing belief in making every farm of factory efficient, productive and

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cost effective. Deborah Fitzgerald, dean of the school , the Humanities and professor of the History of technology at MIT, observes that the emergence of industrial logic into farming meant that the farms were to reflect the

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ideals of modern mass production and drip decisions about the farms will be driven by the industrial boardroom factory farms linked capital, raw materials, transportation networks, communication systems and newly trained technical experts. Interconnected and often

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sprawling These systems of production and consumption function like grids which fit into the more identifiable components of industrialization. The tractors paved roads, bank credit, migrant labor and commodity markets. Window mary remembers this point on

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history's timeline in a much more personal way, Barry's grandfather lived under the distress of debt for more than 40 years. His small town grandfather was forced to come face to face and toe to toe with an

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agribusiness executive and industrial Goliath. His name will be much better known to us James P Duke Duke in berries. Assessment of the situation was a person who stood diametrically opposed to his grandfather, both in terms

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of the scale of dukes wealth and the social measure of Duke's achievements, as well as in terms of the difference between their understanding of how wealth and achievement should be measured. Barrie uses a wonderful metaphor that

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he learned from his teacher Wallace Stegner, to describe the essential difference between his grandfather and James P. Duke Stagner thought that people in the U. S . Could be divided into two kinds boomers and stickers

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, boomers are those who pillage and run, who want to make a killing and end up on easy Street. Whereas stickers are those who settle and love the life they have made in the place that they

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have made it in. The boomer is motivated by greed, the desire for money, property and therefore power Stickers on the contrary, are motivated by affection by such love for a place in its life that

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they want to preserve it and remain in it. Stickers find a sense of belonging, a sense of belonging in the midst of a larger community of people that lives in harmony with in symbiotic relationship with a

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much larger web of life. Barry's grandfather did not intend to increase his own efficiency by harnessing and harvesting the land for his own wealth or the wealth of his family, but rather he found his wealth by

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belonging to the land, the people, the place , the community it created, fed and nourished in Barry's mind. What the majority of economists have ignored and failed to include in their definition of economy is

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the notion of land economy. Of course this is not universally true of economists. If I'm really going to be fair, the work of E. F . Schumacher comes to mind in his classic book,

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Small is beautiful. Schumacher's book is enjoying somewhat of a revival, particularly in Britain in another country where there's an interest in what's called steady state economics. For schumacher and those who argue for steady state economics

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, financial growth and wealth must always be considered in relation to the natural resources upon which it depends. The challenge is to reduce the impact of wealth creation on the environment. In the 1970s, Shoemaker observed

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that the judgment of economics as the primary measure of meaning was too fragmentary and narrow. Now let me pause there for a minute. I want to emphasize this point in relation to a question that was raised

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yesterday during the panel about business. Some were worried that our discussion maybe setting up a kind of false and unrealistic boundary between business and the church shoemaker is very helpful here. He observed that the judgment of

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economics as the primary measure of meaning was too fragmentary and narrow. He wrote, if economic thinking pervades the whole of society, even simple non economic values like beauty, health or cleanliness can survive only if

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they prove to be economic. In other words, if they prove to be cost efficient effective to generate wealth in monetary terms, Schumacher observes that the modern materialistic way of life has produced modern economics, a

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world in which everything can become a commodity, but he also finds a rich resource to reconsider the role that economics plays in Western societies in the great traditions of faith, and particularly underscores the concept of buddhist

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economics, Buddhist economics emphasizes right livelihood. From the perspective of buddhist economics, the essence of civilization is not in the multiplication of wants, but in the purification of human character. Production of goods can never

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then be seen as more important and creative activity. The teaching of the buddha and joins a reverend and non violent attitude not only to all sentient beings, but also with great emphasis to trees. Non human

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nature is not reduced to passive matter that is instrumental in human production and wealth. Creation for the sake of enriching human life. The whole creation, the whole community of living organisms is part of a larger

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cycle of creation and destruction that works together to sustain life. Buddhist economics invites us to rethink the function of work. We don't just work to produce work gives us the chance to utilize and develop one's own

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faculties, to overcome ego centeredness by joining with others , to work toward a common goal or task and to bring forth enough goods and services needed for sustenance . Buddhist economics invites us to rethink the attachment to

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material things, to rethink the role of wealth, to reconsider the size, the scale of a viable economy, simplicity and Nonviolence are essential aspects of the buddhist way of life. Consumption is not the ultimate

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purpose or goal for human life, but the means of human well being. The beginning point for economic planning and production becomes ensuring that everyone has access to the way to express their own creativity. Eca hole

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is um can emerge from a variety of the world's great faith traditions. Gandhi, the wisdom seeker and champion of nonviolent resistance in India, began to challenge the impoverishment of people in that nation by beginning with

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people living in the villages who had been left out of the industrial and colonial equation. He began with stabilizing and enriching the traditional way of life to release them from dependence upon the industrial system through the spinning

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wheel. A wonderful recent example of this approach is found in the on call project. The on shell project was started by young woman named Colleen Klein's who's from Louisville Kentucky. During our studies at the Rhode

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Island School of Design, she traveled to India to learn about design and the 2/3 world. While she was there, she learned about the experience of women who had either been kidnapped or sold into sexual slavery

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. New york times columnist Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl Blue done estimate in their book Half the Sky that there are three million women and girls and a small number of boys worldwide who can be fairly termed enslaved in

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the sex trade today. In the words of christoph and you don, capitalism created new markets for rice and potatoes, but it also created new markets for female flesh. Globalization made transportation of human bodies more

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economically efficient. After returning to the U. S . Klein wanted to do something about the situation. So she developed a project along with some other women friends that would help women who had been victims of

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human trafficking to provide for their own economic well being , to prove their economic worth and value for their families and to ensure their freedom from sexual slavery. The project, which is called financial, as I

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mentioned to you, has a name that comes from a term in hindi, which literally means security and safety. It refers to the edge of the sorry and providing safety for loved ones. The project also

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provides women with the education and technological means, a sewing machine and computer access to make beautiful scarves. Part of what is so beautiful about this particular project is that it not only gives some practical tools,

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but it also encourages the women to draw upon a traditional form of art in creating these fabulous scarfs. The project is environmentally sustainable and the scarves are made from old recycled saris. The post colonial perspective of

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George, Tinker adds another dynamic dynamic to the discussion of alcoholism, but this time from the north american context, Tinker argues that christianizing indigenous peoples cannot be separated from the colonizing voices of government and economic interests

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. The spirit of reciprocity, which is a critical part of tribal life, offers a unique basis for discussions of economy, the sacredness of the earth and communal responsibility. Reciprocity extends beyond a notion of partnership

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among human beings to kinship ties with plants with animals . Rock means spirit beings in all sorts of other than human persons. The common threads of all these approaches to eca hole is um that I have named

00:29:37.570 - 00:29:57.590

is to reconnect local production for local consumption, reduce the impact of wealth creation on the environment, create a new sustainable economy within the shell of the old industrial economy to create a new sustainable economy within the

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shell of the old mechanized, highly technological and centralized economy, local congregations across the country are advancing an eca holistic approach to economy by allowing farmers to set up markets for locally grown food in their parking lots

00:30:15.680 - 00:30:30.380

or fellowship holes in an effort to emphasize importance of eating locally grown foods. These are excellent efforts, but it's also important to note here that farmers markets can be placed in locations where people can most easily

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afford to buy the food sold there. The emphasis tends to be placed more on eating organic foods than on food justice. Remember from some of our earlier discussions, the significant disparities evident in income and overall

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net worth. When examining the relationships of wealth, inequalities to race and ethnicity. Marc Almond says that in 2009 the number of black and Hispanic Children under the age of 18 living in poverty reached an all

00:31:02.930 - 00:31:19.940

time high three times greater than that of white and asian Children. There is a real need for food security. There is a real need for access to healthy, affordable, culturally appropriate food within the context

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of institutionalized racism, racial formation and racialized geography, ease farmers, markets should be intentionally located in urban and rural communities, locating these markets in urban areas where people live in food deserts and or food swamps

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and lack access to affordable and healthy food. Last summer, I heard a wonderful story about how a presbyterian church was doing this at the Presbyterian Women's gathering in Orlando florida, one of the women who attended

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a workshop that I was offering their tell me about her church's trunk ministry, that the members of the church, they had decided that they wanted to create their own kind of garden community garden, but they

00:32:04.120 - 00:32:16.490

realized that they had excess uh, fruits and vegetables , maybe they had some excess cucumbers, so they drove their cars actually an end to an area in their city where they didn't have access to healthy food

00:32:16.490 - 00:32:32.350

and the people that live there would not have easy access to transportation and they distributed the extra food um that they had there. Let me turn to another very promising effort that is emerging at the grassroots level

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at this point, among people of faith who are forming what are called intentional communities in which property and resources are shared in common. Several different models of attention. Intentional communities are emerging in cities and towns

00:32:46.820 - 00:33:00.870

across the country in response to the needs of both urban and rural communities. What's most interesting about these efforts is that they are coming from both evangelical as well as progressive groups and from poor, as well

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as more privileged communities, intentional communities envision alternatives to our current economic system by practicing communal decision making, grounding themselves in a consciousness of the radical interdependence of human beings within the whole creation, modeling a life

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lived for and with others and sharing wealth and goods in common, moreover, intentional communities create change within the church itself as they bring christian sources of thought and practice into conversation with other sources of wisdom,

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including wisdom from the world's great variety of religious traditions and other social organizations. They also increase their mission vision and means through consensus models of decision making rob mold describes commitments and characteristics of evangelical intentional communities as

00:33:53.820 - 00:34:10.590

ancient future activism. These intentional communities bear similarities to earlier movements, such as the Mennonite Read the Place fellowship, Bruder Hoff and catholic worker communities. The commitments of members of evangelical intentional communities are fueled by

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their belief in jesus as a wandering acetic and as a model for countercultural life. These intentional communities are forms as groups of people who covenant together, make a commitment to share ownership of property that is usually

00:34:27.280 - 00:34:42.770

found in an economically depressed urban area and then create a rule similar to Benedict's rule by which they lived . One of the models for evangelical intentional communities can be found in the catholic worker movement. It's worth

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taking a moment to consider the theological basis for catholic , the catholic worker movement, and a bit more detail as it can help us, as we think more about how to generate alternatives to the dominant approaches

00:34:53.800 - 00:35:09.280

to wealth creation in our church and in our culture . I'm currently finishing up a book about Dorothy Day , a woman who co founded the Catholic worker movement along with Peter Maurin in 1932, 1932, as

00:35:09.280 - 00:35:22.730

you may know, was the worst year of the Great Depression when I think about Dorothy Day and how she fits within our larger canon of theologians, I think of her as a social mystic, as a

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social mystic day, encountered the Divine in the midst of her daily activities, feeding the hungry clothing, the naked, visiting the sick and those in prison . She came to recognize that her social activities were

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not just an end in themselves, but the expression of her resistance to social and political artifices, that created false boundaries between human beings, God and the natural world. In this way, her social action

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itself was sacramental. They drew upon the insights of mystical writers, fueled her work with prayer and routine spiritual practices, and studied herself in dynamic relationship with the Divine as she faced head on the depth of

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the world's chaos and disorder. She and Peter morin founded houses of hospitality on the idea that every house should have a christ room, a christ room that will be open to people who are in need of

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shelter. They started a farming commune for the purpose of curing unemployment and solving the problem of the machine , Dorothy Day and the catholic workers practice what they called The Little Way, a term that was used

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by Saint Therese of Lisieux. Your the little Way meant that each act of love, each act of resistance, each challenge to economic injustice, social exclusion and violence was a form of witness to God.

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Dorothy Day would actually probably prefer the term away of embodying God's love. None of the efforts are too small or insignificant. All of the workers who lived in houses of hospitality had to do all of the

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jobs, from cleaning the toilets to editing the paper they published, from making sure there was enough food for the evening meal to speaking to groups about their work. I'll be honest with you that when I

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was on my sabbatical and in the midst of researching the story about Dorothy Day had tried to adopt as many of the daily disciplines that she practiced as possible so I could get a better understanding of her.

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Those that have found to be most transforming were to find time in the middle of the day for 15 minutes in silence to try as much as possible to avoid making negative comments about other people coming face to

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face with people living in poverty, looking people directly in the eyes every single day, so as to eliminate a kind of comfortable social distance with which I had become familiar and then to do manual labor aura

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at la bora. Now, I need to be clear here that houses of hospitality and catholic worker farming communes are not charities or institutions. Dialogue with poverty and the catholic worker community as day conceived of it

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bore no upper or middle class assumptions. They were trying to change the assumptions of the discussion of poverty from economic concerns to theological ones. They intentionally defied the traditional approaches within the churches and social organizations used

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to address the situation of people living in poverty. All the people who entered into a house of hospitality were treated as essential to the mystical body of christ houses of hospitality were conceived to be simply houses where

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people could live and they could stay there as long as they needed to know, proof of need had to be shown no person deserve more care, more preference or more privilege than any other, regardless of

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race, gender or faith. Tradition. It's interesting and a big challenge to me that day herself never took a salary. She also never paid taxes. She never voted. She was a personal list.

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She thought that other human beings and caring for the earth were every, every individual's responsibility. She believed that what christians should do in the face of economic justice and a culture infatuated with death and destruction was

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to seize the opportunity to create a new society within the shell of the old. There is so much more that I could say about her story. Let me, however, move at this point to another

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model of intentional communities covenant Community Church in Louisville, Kentucky Covenant Community Church based its understanding of intentional communities on the work done by Church of the Savior in Washington, D. C. C. C.

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C, as it's called, has chosen to draw on concept of shared wealth and property that are common to a variety of religious traditions and the resources of a secular Center for Social Innovation. The Canadian Centre

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for Social Innovation C. C. C. Is not a form of communal living, but rather an alternative type of congregation for about six years, C . C. C. Shared a building with another

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church James lease, but the high cost of maintaining a building constructed in the early 20th century threatened to drain the coffers of both, forcing them to envision an alternative approach. Both communities agreed that they did

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not derive their identities or mission from the property that they shared. Ultimately, they concluded that identifying with a particular piece of property actually serve to separate them from the larger community, their vision for work in

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the world, and even from other christians who they , who met in their own buildings in various parts of the city. Together, members of the congregation has reached an agreement that the church buildings should become

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a cooperative, a vision statement named the group's deep core values of creating a space for mission and social innovation. During board meetings, members come to decisions about how to use the space by consensus. While

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working through this process, the congregations became aware of the way in which the walls of the church not only kept others who were different out, but also in a sense, held the congregation in recently,

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the congregations began a quarterly practice of inviting congregations all across the city to worship together in public spaces as a symbol of their broader connections. All of these grassroots efforts that I have described, contribute to systemic

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, structural and attitudinal change as they ground themselves in a radical sense of interdependence of neighbor and nature. Seek to eliminate social distance created between and among human beings. Aim to heal fragmented and divided communities work

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collaboratively with other organizations, religious and not make decisions by consensus and covenant to create wealth by living in partnership with people and the earth. They point us , I think, toward a grace filled economy that

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embodies sharing reciprocity and love for the whole creation. So how shall we end this discussion together this week ? At least at this point, I hope that it will continue both around your tables at lunch and

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as you leave this place, I want to leave you with a kind of gift. And I would ask the ushers who may have that to pass that out at the moment. In recent weeks, I've

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found myself reflecting back on the theological and moral courage evidence in the lives of reformers in many different eras . Of course, one of the first that came to mind was martin Luther, Luther had a theological

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and moral courage to confront the selling of indulgences in the church of the 16th century. What Luther was really confronting was the mechanism for creating wealth within the church. Because the relationship at that time between church

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and society, there were much broader implications for his actions. Indulgences were being sold in the 16th century because of the belief that Christ Mary and the Saints had done more than they needed to do to achieve

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salvation and thus had accumulated a Treasury of merits that the church could distribute and indulgences for the sake of worthy purposes. Do you remember that famous saying of john texel, a Dominican priest that was hired to

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sell indulgences? As soon as the coin in the coffer rings the soul from purgatory springs. Quite clearly , we're living in a different social, economic and ecclesial and political context. I should also probably note

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for the historians in the room that I'm aware that the roman catholic church still has indulgences, but they are defined quite differently. However, I think that Luther's act of protest and the 95 theses that he

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developed in response to the selling of indulgences in his time, still offers a powerful metaphor, particularly for reform christians today. We live in a society in which everything can become a commodity. If that claim

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seems shocking, take some time to read what money can't buy by Michael Sandel Sandal offers some startling facts . Prison inmates in some prisons can pay for an upgrade in their accommodations, Loblists in our nation's capital

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offer homeless people$15-$20 an hour to hold their place in line so they don't have to wait and line themselves to attend a congressional hearing. There's a market for human genes, father's sperm cells and mother's eggs

00:45:29.490 - 00:45:44.480

. Infertile couples from wealthier Western nations can hire a surrogate mother at a cheaper rate from countries. And the two thirds world Sandal even describes a death market in which people have purchased excessive amounts of life insurance

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on themselves and then sold it to investors at a profit, but which promises to pay even greater amounts once the person dies. These represent just some of the examples Michael Sandel clearly articulates why we should be

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alarmed by these trends. In a society where everything is for sale, life is harder for those of modest means. The more money can buy, the more affluence or lack of it matters as money comes

00:46:16.160 - 00:46:30.720

to buy more and more political influence, Good medical care, a home in a safe neighborhood rather than a crime ridden one. Access to elite schools rather than failing ones. The distribution of income and wealth

00:46:30.730 - 00:46:52.610

looms larger and larger christian resistance protest has never been more critical. Christian institutions along with alliances and partnerships made across the lines of religious traditions have the opportunity to raise their own distinctive voices, contribute wisdom from

00:46:52.610 - 00:47:09.760

their traditions, clear and open spaces for creative thinking , enforce a fuller discussion of values and value what we need. Today is a common set of theses that will serve as a theological and ethical basis to

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confront what Michael Sandel calls market triumphalism. I want to leave you with 9.05 theses to test to engage to practice and to encourage us together to think clearly about the relevance of our faith to issues of wealth

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, inequality and poverty we are facing in our country and in the larger global community today, There is only one God and the market is not God. Markets are a means of exchange, not the means

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to determine value or values. Markets reflect human and social and political attitudes, preferences and biases. Therefore , we must thoroughly examine the connections between racism, sexism and the world's history of colonialism and the severe

00:48:05.550 - 00:48:16.750

unequal distribution of wealth in the U. S. And around the world. The trinity the three and one can be understood as a metaphor and a model for the interdependence of the whole creation, the whole

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community of living organisms. To say that we believe in one God and that human beings belong to God and flourish. And community means that we must repent from market fundamentalism, authentic christian community is, and

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always has been countercultural. Resistance is central to the reform faith. And faithfulness to God requires resisting questioning and confronting established beliefs in both church and society that do not witness to God's reign viable alternatives, visions

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that confront the dominant neoliberal approach to wealth creation exists , the reformers believed and therefore we affirm that human freedom and salvation extends from God's grace, not from any social merit, works or preferences. And now

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perhaps for the most important, the.05, the U. S. Population Makes up a little less than 5% of the world's population. We must expand our point of reference to a conversation about wealth,

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inequalities and be challenged by the way in which the rest of the world tells us that we've had enough . We need to be challenged by the way the rest of the world defines enough. You may want

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to add or write your own theses. My hope is that together we will have the theological and moral courage necessary to move toward a grace filled economy. May that be our aim? Thank you for helping

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us see and know again the economies that we perpetuate in which we participate, the economy of enough, The grace Field economy, which is our claim and call Thank you for your convictions and your fearlessness and

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your stewardship of your mind with its capacity for details and gathering together stories and journalism and literature and statistics . Thank you for bringing that together, join me